RevitalizationofRivers In IndiaDraftPolicy Recommendation mandatory in this model in view of its multi-fold benefits. The packages of practices that can be followed for the fruit crops are given in Dr. Kumar’s report (Annexure 12). The Department of Sustainable Organic Agriculture of TNAU has a web portal dedicated to organic farming. 49 The entire portal is in English as well as Tamil and has a Section on ‘Organic Farming and Zero Budget Special Technologies’. SPECIFIC EXAMPLE OF A MULTI-FRUIT CROP MODEL: MANGO + GUAVA + POMEGRANATE CULTIVATION In this section, we take up a one-acre generic multi-fruit crop model consisting of mango, guava and pomegranate, as these are the most widely grown fruit trees. In one acre, 32 mango trees, 75 guava trees, and 285 pomegranate plants are used – leading to 392 fruit trees as the main crops. The spacing for each of the three species are as shown in Figure 6. Along the border, in the east-west direction as alley crops, two rows of trees consisting of 14 jamun/jack fruit trees and 70 native and endemic multi-purpose timber trees are planted. Along the border in the northsouth direction, herbal and mulch plants are planted and maintained as shrubs for mulch and bio-input needs. ECONOMICS OF THE ONE ACRE MODEL If this proposed model were to be implemented, the governments should be willing to bear the short-term cost of livelihood loss for the farmers. Also, scale and the pace of the scale-up required for the project can only be taken up by state machinery. The major bottleneck of the project will be the willingness and ability of cash crop riverine farmers to convert to horticulture. In India, most of the small and marginal farmers do not have the ability to absorb the risk of such a transition. The challenge in the economic model is that the earnings of the farmer for the first few years of conversion are below the threshold of 161

RevitalizationofRivers In IndiaDraftPolicy Recommendation their current earning of Rs. 74, 988 per annum. 50 The fact is that not many farmers will have the savings to fund this upfront cash outlay. This would slow down the implementation of the program because only a small percentage of the farmers will be able to fund their livelihoods for the initial three year gestation before their income rises above their current earning threshold. FIGURE 6: One Acre Agri-Horti Model (Mango, Guava, Pomegranate) The government, therefore, should be ready to provide a livelihood subsidy or loan to the farmer for the initial years of gestation of the fruit 162